renters in the mist

I have seen it before.


Enough mist hangs in the air over the sea that the horizon ceases to be the line of infinity. Instead, it joins the sea and sky in one curtain that is just an arm's length away.


I saw it sailing the Gulf Islands and standing on the embarcadero in San Francisco. But the curtain there was a metallic curtain bringing the promise of ear-numbing fog.


Not this curtain. It is as hot as the fire curtain that made its appearance in vaudeville theaters. A mist born of long days of unrelenting heat.


The same mist I saw that summer in Greece where my youth was badly invested, if not misspent. The mist that kept Odysseus from his beloved Ithaca.


Today was the day I was going to start looking for my next base camp to explore Mexico. And I did start by looking at a few places -- from the outside -- in Barra de Navidad.


Like everything else in my life during the past year, I am not quite certain what I want the place to be. I have enjoyed having the space and view of a three-bedroom home on the beach. But my practical side tells me that a one-bedroom apartment would suit me just fine.


The upside of playing Hamlet (and living alone) is that I get to be indecisive without running a rapier through the rest of the cast. Instead, I get to sit on my balcony and listen to the waves hypnotize me into thinking that time simply does not matter.


And that is a fog that suits me quite well.


After all, tomorrow is another day.